


Tall Tales From the Moonbeam

by HyperionGuns



Category: Borderlands, TFTBL - Fandom, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Aliens, Diners, Domestic Fluff, Multi, Paranormal, Rest Area, Road Trips, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:54:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperionGuns/pseuds/HyperionGuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys and Vaughn stop at a service and rest area on their cross-country journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Doppelgänger

**Author's Note:**

> I'm keeping the chapters in this fic quick and casual, so don't expect a huge word count. Hopefully you find the content entertaining anyways.

**Prelude: Moonbeam Service and Rest Area**  


 

The clock flicked from 10:55 to 10:56.  The tedious drive had taken Rhys and Vaughn half way across the middle of America, and it was time to stop for the night.  “Moonbeam Service and Rest Area: 2 Miles” read a sign plastered with bumperstickers.

 

Rhys pulled to the shoulder a few minutes later.   “Vaughn, hey, bud get up, we’re at a rest stop” Rhys said as he gently shook Vaughn’s arm.

 

“Where are we babe?” Vaughn’s pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

 

“Colorado, hon,” He answered.

 

A warm summer night’s breeze carried the sort of magic only found in a rest stop.  Reality's veil was thin where nobody stayed for long.  The Moonbeam Motel sign flickered.

 

**Chapter 1: The Doppelgänger**

 

“One, please,” Rhys said, finishing the check-in process.

 

“Ok, one night, one bed, check out before 11 man.  50 bucks.” a greasy man with a small face said, “if there’s anything wrong just call ‘ol Scooter,”

 

Rhys nodded to Scooter and went to get Vaughn, who had found the diner.

 

 

 

“My twin brother and I took different paths in life,”  A scarred man at the diner said to a captive audience of a few truckers and Vaughn.  “I always wanted to be an actor, but life had other plans.”

 

His story continued as Rhys tapped Vaughn on the shoulder.

 

“The room’s ready”  Rhys said to the small disheveled man.

“Let me finish this pie, this guy’s story is good,”  He said, shoveling strawberry rhubarb into his mouth and looking back at the storyteller.

 

“My brother Timothy was the president of Hyperion Battles by the time he was 35, a soldier for hire company under contract for the wars in the Middle East.  For me, times were tougher.  There was no cushy desk job, and my brother knew I wouldn’t be satisfied with one anyways.  That’s when he offered me a position.”

 

The man took a fork of cherry pie.

 

“He sat me down one day and said, ‘Jack, I have an opportunity for you,’  I’m listening, right.  I’d been eating stale bread from the garbage.  ‘I need to be more than the head of this company.  I need to be an icon’  Valor wasn’t cheap.  I’d be deployed in one of his companies, like an undercover CEO, except very public.  Photographers, journalists, the whole nine yards for this middle-aged whiteshirt fighting the ‘good fight’ literally.

 

I’d do a tour and my brother goes on vacation somewhere remote.  We would never be seen together.  We were one, we were Timothy Lawrence, President of Hyperion Battles.  I was getting paid, he was getting glory, life was good.  Then I asked for a raise.

 

You know, I’m doing all the work for him, I deserve at least half the money.  He shouldn’t have refused.  I shouldn’t have let my temper go like I did.

 

The next day, we were in a convoy.  As expected, we encountered hostile entities in an area we were not supposed to engage.  Instead of drawing them away from the city, I opened fire.   A six car convoy of American military contractors versus who we believed to be Taliban soldiers.  They weren’t though.  Atlas International had an undercover operation running.  Dressed in full regalia, with non-standard guns, the difference was nought.  They returned fire and the battle broke out.

 

In the end, both sides had fled the scene, leaving behind more than forty civilian casualties.  To everyone, it was the military industrial complex gone horrific.  To me, it was the only way to get revenge.  I fled in the night and hid in plain sight.  Went back to being a bum, eating stale bread from the trash.  Eventually I got my trucking license and life went on”

 

“You committed war crimes because your brother didn’t give you a raise?”  Vaughn blurted out.

 

“Yeah well, I… y’know,” Jack stumbled, “Hey Mox, could I get a refill on this coffee?”

 

“Sure hon” The shapely waitress replied, pouring the last of a pot of coffee into his mug.

 

“So what happened to your twin?” A dark haired woman asked.

 

“He went out with a fight,” Jack said,  “By the time they got to his house to arrest him he had it rigged.  Blew an entire precinct of LAPD sky high,”

 

“And you never got blamed?” another trucker asked.

 

“Nothing he could say had any credibility.  ‘Oh my homeless twin brother actually attacked those American contractors in the Middle Eas-‘ no, nobody bought that shit.  I got in an accident, like a week later and scarred up my face enough to clearly look different, so that worked out,”

 

“Vaughn, are you ready to turn in?”  Rhys asked with a yawn.

 

“Yeah let’s hit the hay bro,” Vaughn said, a tired smile on his face.

 

 

 

The room’s air conditioning had two settings.  No and Iceman.  Iceman it was.  Rhys held Vaughn close with his arm.  Vaughn wrapped around his midsection and gently kissed his chest.  Rhys repaid the kiss with a smooch on the forehead.  They dozed off, warm together under the blanket.


	2. Close Encounters of the Shade Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys and Vaughn's vehicle won't start, extending their stay at the Moonbeam.

The sound of thunder woke Vaughn at 6:23 am, a bit early given the late night he had had.At least for vacation standards.He clung to Rhys and drifted back to sleep.He began to dream that he was a barnacle on a boat.The sea water rushed into his shell as the ship crashed over the waves.He felt safe and warm in there, stuck to such a ship that he knew would take him all sorts of places.

 

“Hey buddy, how’d ya sleep”Rhys’s voice lulled him into the waking world.

 

“Good, how about you?” he said with a half awake voice.

 

“The thunder kept me up, but it was kinda nice.”

 

“Yeah we don’t get weather like this in Los Angeles, huh”Vaughn said, gazing through the crooked blinds.

 

Rhys’s stomach grumbled, “Want to get some breakfast?” he asked.

 

 

 

“Two sunny side up eggs, with toast and bacon” Moxxi said, setting a plate in front of Rhys, “And a short stack of pancakes with strawberries” she placed the golden stack of hotcakes in front of Vaughn.“Y’allenjoy”

 

Rhys cut the yellow yolk down the middle and lifted it onto a half of buttered sourdough toast.

 

“Diner breakfasts are always the best bro,”Vaughn said,“No matter where you go, they remind you of home.”

 

“That’s why it’s called comfort food,”Rhys said, taking a bite of his toast and egg.

 

 

 

After breakfast, Rhys checked them out of the motel.It was time to hit the road again.

 

Rhys turned the key and the engine flooded.The empty warbling sound started and stopped about ten times before he turned to Vaughn.

 

“Let’s go see Scooter,”Rhys said, a bit of disappointment in his voice that the RV wouldn’t make the entire trip without breaking down.

 

 

 

“Yeeeeah, the transmission’s dust,” Scooter said pointing at a piece of the mechanical tangle of the engine, “I haven’t got anything for a 66 Cortez like this one in the shop,”

 

“How fast can you get one?”Vaughn asked nervously.

 

“Mmmmmmmbout three days, I guuuuesssss” Scooter said, “Want me to check y’all back in?”

 

Rhys shrugged.He’d gotten the Clark Cortez from his boss as a bonus.It was kind of a mess on the inside; the bed had been pulled out to make room for a bar, and the couch had been worn flat by Mr. Henderson’s constant use of it for women of the night.It honestly looked like he had been living out of it at some point, but hey, don’t look a gift motorhome in the mouth.

 

“Yeah better than sleeping in there,”Vaughn said.

 

“Alriiiiiiight!” Scooter said with excitement pointing finger guns at the couple, “My sister Ellie will handle the installation once it comes in,”

 

Three days in the middle of nowhere.This would be fun.Rhys and Vaughn stepped out of the garage.

 

“Hey kids! seen anything weird in the night sky?”A thin man exclaimed leaping from around a corner.

 

Rhys let out a high-pitched scream and quickly covered his own mouth.

 

“Sorry to frighten ya!The name’s Shade”the man said adjusting his glasses,“I’ve just been looking to see if anyone’s seen what I saw last night.”

 

“Go on..”Vaughn said, strangely interested in this guys tale.

 

“Well,” Shade started, “It was a dark and stormy night, the heavens hurled thunderbolts down like rain, and rain like, uh, sand, yeah.

 

I was out minding my own business, digging through the diner’s garbage cans for personal documents when I heard what sounded like a sub atmospheric hover engine-“

 

“A what?”Rhys interrupted.

 

“You know,” Shade said, gesturing with his hands, “Like a, nevermind.I heard, a sound!”

 

Vaughn gasped with shock.

 

“I know, I know, scary stuff.I turned around and saw a light in the trees.Frightened, I called out ‘Hello, have you come to take me to Mars?’.And to my terror, it replied from the tree line.

 

‘Helloooo Earthling!’ a menacing yellow toaster shouted, rolling out of the bushes,”

 

“A… toaster?”Rhys said confused.

 

“Shhh, Rhys, he’s getting to the good part,”Vaughn said, putting his hand over Rhys’s mouth.

 

“I looked the machine in it’s single deep blue eye.He rolled closer, and then he reached out!”Shade said with a jump towards Vaughn.

 

Vaughn clenched his heart and fell back onto Rhys.“And then what?” He said, with a tremor in his voice.

 

“He grabbed my shirt and pulled me back into the forest.‘Come on flesh sack!I wanna show you my meat collection!’ the robot cheered.I was excited and terrified.But then, I saw the ship.It glowed like a star, and it reeked like a gas station toilet.”

 

“Ew”Vaughn interjected.

 

“It was disgusting, and the smell made me faint,” Shade said with a sudden frown.

 

“Aww what?”Vaughn moaned.

 

“I woke up behind the diner after Moxxi kicked me in the face.‘I told you to stop going through my garbage!’ she said.I apologized and then waited for her to leave so I could look through the garbage again.Then I saw you two nice boys and came to see if you saw anything.”

 

“Sorry man,”Vaughn said, sounding a little bummed, “we were pretty tired last night, so we didn't notice anything.”

 

Shade slumped, “Dang it!Well, see you around”He said, suddenly cheerful again.He walked off into the tree line.

 

“Well that was interesting,”Rhys said.

 

“Yeah,”Vaughn said, sort of distant, “Hey wanna see what there is to do around here?”

 

 

 


End file.
